Chartists abroad: British migrant workers in 19th century Europe

Artisans Abroad: British Migrant Workers in Industrialising Europe, 1815-1870, by Fabrice Bensimon (Oxford University Press, 2023)

No self-respecting Chartist passing through Rouen in the mid 1840s (and there were more of them than you might think) could do so without visiting the Nailors’ Arms Inn. Set up by Thomas Sidaway and his son John, the pub was somewhere that British workers in France might read the Northern Star or make donations to help the victims of oppression back home. It was even the base for a branch of the Chartist land company.

The Sidaways were just one small part of a British working-class diaspora to be found in Europe in the decades after Waterloo. Their pub must have drawn its customers from among the thousands of British workers who either travelled to Europe with their employer for specific projects, or who had crossed the Channel on their own initiative in search of work.

In a new book, Artisans Abroad: British Migrant Workers in Industrialising Europe, 1815–1870, Professor Fabrice Bensimon provides a fascinating account of the men and women who made the journey and who played a decisive part in European industrialisation. As he writes: ‘They came from across Britain, but especially from industrialised areas such as South Wales, Staffordshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, and the city of Dundee in Scotland. They worked in linen, cotton, lace, wool combing, the iron industry, machine-making, steamship manufacturing, and railway building.’

Chartists, of course, made up a small number of the total. There were no more than 104 subscribers in France to the land company. But even so, they appeared to maintain a lively political culture. There were active branches in Rouen, Calais and Boulogne, and probably short-lived organisations elsewhere. Thomas Sidaway, a radical since the days of Peterloo, was an important part of this France-based Chartist group, lecturing and organising meetings, and collecting subscriptions; but he was far from a lone voice.

I know Professor Bensimon, an historian of the nineteenth century at Sorbonne University, from his work on Chartism. He has spoken at previous Chartism Days, and a few years back was kind enough to host a Chartism Day in Paris. This current work is far wider in scope, however, drawing on a large and diverse archive of new sources to present the first history of the migration of British workers to the European continent in this era, and to uncover the stories of many migrant workers in a genuinely transnational labour history.

Better still, it is also available on open access, and a PDF of the entire book is free to download. Follow this link then click on the ‘open access’ button.